Everyone knows that the Bonny Doon Ecological Reserve—well, about 60%
of it—burned on June 11. People who care to look also know that it’s
already recovering: brackens came first, followed by acorn woodpeckers;
manzanitas are sprouting from their bases, oaks and cypresses have
shoots sticking out at odd angles from upper branches; and, as every
homeowner laments, you can't exterminate poison oak.

Less apparent is a substantial behind-the-scenes mobilization, not only
to help the Reserve in its post-fire condition, but also to make up for
the 20 years of neglect since its acquisition in 1989. Since we
reported on State Assemblyman John Laird’s August 12 meeting in the
Sept.-Oct. 2008 Highlander, a number of experts from various agencies,
as well as community members, have been gathering, sharing information,
and making plans to monitor listed species, eradicate invasive
non-natives, deter human trespassers, restore areas damaged by fire
fighting and protect the Reserve from future fires, mend fences, find
funds—and more. Mr. Laird’s sustaining interest and sharp focus, with
the help of his able staff, keep this collection of strong individuals
on track: work will be coordinated, not piecemeal.

Laurie Briden,
Senior Wildlife Management Supervisor with the California Department of
Fish and Game (DFG), is the leader and coordinator of this complex
endeavor. She has past experience with bears, mountain lions, listed
species—both animal and vegetable, and an array of water projects in
the Suisun Marsh. Currently, she manages DFG lands in 13 counties. Her
background demonstrates she's ready for any challenge, and Ms. Briden
has confirmed this in her response to the Reserve's needs. In addition
to driving back and forth from Stockton for meetings and to bring
resource personnel to the Reserve, she has managed to place developing
and approving the Reserve’s Management Plan at the head of the
priorities list for our region.

At our Nov. 12 RBDA meeting, Ms. Briden will tell us what’s happening
and what's planned in the Reserve, and what outside specialists she can
enlist. Her presentation will show some specific areas of interest, and
a contact list of the DFG organization for future reference. Copies of
her presentation will be available. Despite what she’s already achieved
and her enthusiasm going forward, Ms. Briden stresses that DFG simply
doesn’t have the resources to accomplish everything that's
needed: she hopes that community members, in addition to the ones
who already volunteer in the Reserve, will offer their expertise. Ms.
Briden prefers an informal atmosphere and encourages questions at any
time.

Steve Schindler, Warden with DFG, will join Ms. Briden to talk about
trespassing—the Reserve is closed except by permission through May
2009—what the problems are, what we as residents can do to help, and
whom we can contact.

Toxic Dust from Cemex? The Answer Is Blowin' In the Wind

As so often in life, the answer is complex and difficult to discover.
On Oct. 3, Ed Kendig of the Monterey Bay Unified Air Pollution Control
District [MBUAPCD] wrote to the Board of Supervisors and County to
notify them, in accordance with Prop. 65, the Safe Drinking Water and
Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, that MBUAPCD had discovered hexavalent
chromium [Cr(VI)] in the airborne dust coming from the Cemex plant in
Davenport. At Davenport’s Pacific Elementary School the risk appeared
to be eight times the Prop. 65 standard.

Cr(VI) is a very scary substance, made famous by the film “Erin
Brockovich.” Due to its highly chemically reactive nature, minute
amounts cause lung cancer. This extreme reactivity, however, causes
Cr(VI) to decay in a day or two to the vastly more common Cr(III),
which is actually an essential human nutrient, present in ordinary
multivitamins. Prop. 65 requires a warning when there is a cancer risk
of 10 cases per million people from constant exposure at the observed
concentration for an entire lifetime. This risk is roughly equivalent
to the chance of being hit by lightning. It was only last April, in
Riverside County, that Cr(VI) was discovered to be associated with
cement manufacture, when Cr(III) is converted to Cr(VI) in the heat of
cement kilns.

Once certain of its facts, the South Coast Air Quality Management
District [SCAQMD], which made the Riverside discovery as part of its
oversight of air quality in the entire LA Basin, notified MBUAPCD,
which in turn began a series of nine weekly air samples for Cr(VI) at
two locations in Davenport, and one, for background levels, in Swanton.
Not wanting to cause unjustified panic, or any modification of Cemex's
process, MBUAPCD conducted the sampling without notification. With a
budget one-seventh the size of SCAQMD, MBUAPCD was challenged to obtain
data at the necessary resolution from the less sensitive filters they
had available, and to find a private lab that could analyze the data
quickly and accurately.

In the days after Ed Kendig's Prop. 65 notification circulated, the
Davenport/North Coast Association (DNCA) contacted the Natural
Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and State Sen. Joe Simitian’s office,
who then contacted CA EPA’s Air Resources Board (ARB). Supervisor Neal
Coonerty instigated the County Board of Supervisors to direct County
Health to report to the Board in two weeks. The DNCA Pacific Elementary
trustees held a meeting for parents with Cemex officials, local
regulators and legislators at the Davenport school.

MBUAPCD began daily sampling, with a promise of the use of SCAQMD's lab
for analysis. Unfortunately, the Riverside Cr(VI) hot spot
simultaneously spiked, swamping the Southern California lab’s more
involved and accurate analysis. Cemex, which due to the economic
downturn had already suspended manufacture, covered its kiln clinker
dust pile and began a thorough cleaning of and stepped up dust control
in its shipping and loading operations, the two most likely sources of
the Cr(VI).

During the following week, DNCA, in lieu of a long planned meeting to
discuss MBUAPCD’s update of its November 2007/April 2008 hazard
assessment of mercury risk from Cemex operations, held a community
meeting with Cemex officials and union representatives, State and local
regulators and legislators, and government and NRDC health scientists
in Davenport. Cemex reported that it will change the input source for
its manufacture to more expensive iron ore instead of slag and scrap
iron, which is thought to be the source of Cr(III) in its kilns, and
that it will re-engineer its loading system. The ARB sent MBUAPCD an
array of its much more sensitive air filters and offered the use of the
State’s labs for analysis. By the end of the week, the ARB filters were
in place and that weekend, Cemex voluntarily shut down all operations
so that accurate base levels could be measured.

In the week prior to this article going to press, County Health
recommended in its report to the Supervisors, and the Board approved,
hiring a team of consultants. They will complement MBUAPCD's efforts
outside the school by investigating a variety of metals, including
mercury and Cr(VI), in the air and on surfaces within Pacific School,
and independently sample the outside air and soil and report to the
board including a proposal for appropriate actions. At the Board
hearing several individuals and community organizations, including the
RBDA, asked that Cemex consider voluntarily suspending its loading
operations until the latest data could be analyzed to provide a better
basis for action. While the Board did not adopt Supervisor Coonerty’s
suggestion to that effect in its resolution, the next day, Satish
Sheth, Cemex Vice President and Davenport resident, announced that
Cemex was voluntarily suspending loading, pending the results of the
more accurate analysis of the finer resolution data.

As we go to press the first preliminary analyses of the interim,
low resolution, data show that during the reduced and more controlled
loading-only Cemex operations in the week prior to the large Davenport
public meeting, Cr(VI) levels were quite close to and mostly below the
Prop. 65 warning level. County Health is considering the consultant’s
proposed scope of work. The first data using ARB’s high resolution
filters are being analyzed at ARB’s labs in Sacramento. By the time you
read this, the Davenport school interior study by Teri Copeland and
Associates will have begun and the ARB’s analyses will be public.
MBUAPCD, which is the lead agency, has a website, to publish the
results of the analyses, and County Environmental Health has another
(see end of next column for web addresses), to serve as the central
clearing house for information. Please visit these sites for updates.

So, what is the answer, Mr. Science?

Based on correspondence and conversations with State, local and NRDC
scientists, it is fair to conclude that: Prop. 65 is a good law, aimed
at alerting Californians to health risks in their environment at a very
low level, before they become serious problems. Humans are very poor at
evaluating risk at an intuitive level, grossly overestimating the risks
from rare events, and grossly underestimating the risks from common
events. Just think of the restrictions on air travel stemming from the
shoe and shampoo bomb threats, and try to remember the last time you
read the Prop. 65 warnings at your local gas station or the fish
section of your local grocery.

Cr(VI) is highly carcinogenic and children are more sensitive to it
than adults. Airborne Cr(VI) is thousand times more toxic than the
waterborne Cr(VI) in “Erin Brockovich.” Lung cancer takes decades to
develop and is frequently fatal.
Cr(VI) has probably been present in the emissions from the Davenport
cement factory for decades, yet the Davenport / Bonny Doon census tract
has a lung cancer rate several orders of magnitude lower than the
rates, between 1,100 cases/million (for African-American males) to 255
cases/million (for Latina women), from all causes, for the general
population. Smoking still accounts for 3/4 of those cases.

The amounts of Cr(VI) involved are almost inconceivably small. At the
Prop. 65 warning level, it is necessary to detect 1/200 of a trillionth
of an ounce per breath. Your lungs have surface area roughly equal to
that of a good-sized kitchen, walls and ceiling included; each breath
draws in roughly a quart of air. Prop. 65 is warning you when there is
an amount roughly 1/10,000 the weight of a pollen grain per breath,
coming from the volume of a large soda container, to land somewhere on
a space the size of your kitchen.

With independent scientists and the ARB joining the case, there is
reason to believe that we will soon finally understand the overall risk
that all of Cemex’s emissions present. With Cemex’s good faith and
commitment, there is reason to hope that the risk will be managed at a
level below that of being hit by lightning. Still, as Ed Kendig of
MBUAPCD told the Santa Cruz Sentinel, “We have to remember it will take
a long period of stable operations and monitoring before we can draw
conclusions about how satisfactory the plant's emissions are.”

The community and the RBDA lost one of its outstanding members on
October 1, Don Coyne. Don, a UCSC astrophysics professor and 22-year
Bonny Doon resident, served on the RBDA Executive Board for 10 years,
four of them as chairman, finally stepping down in 2005 as he battled
prostate cancer. Many Bonny Dooners will remember him for the astronomy
wisdom he imparted when he set up his telescope at the BD airport on
clear nights.

Don helped the RBDA win many important struggles over the years,
including the ousting of the biotech goat pharm on Back Ranch Road and
fighting off the events center at Redwood Meadows Ranch.

RBDA Chairman Ted Benhari says of Don: “He was chairman of the RBDA
when I joined the board in 1996. Don was my mentor, educating me about
the community and its political issues and encouraging me as we worked
closely together to try to preserve the nature of our unique community.

“Don wasn’t an imposing figure, grizzled and balding, modest and kind
of impish, with an infectious laugh, which belied his adventurous and
fearless spirit and brilliant mind. Don had an outstanding career in
astrophysics, including designing instruments to capture fundamental
particles raining on earth from space that could yield information
about the origins of the universe. He climbed mountains and, in his
last years while fighting for his life, built a contraption that is
essentially a propellered lawn mower attached to a kite, which he
delighted in flying over Bonny Doon and the North Coast.

“Despite his admiration and respect for UCSC, Don recognized that its
growth was becoming damaging to the community and threatening the rural
nature of Bonny Doon, and he became one of the original members of
CLUE, the Coalition for Limiting University Expansion, whose name he
coined.

“We were good friends and shared many conversations, about politics,
human behavior, and the wondrous nature of the universe, and his
passing leaves a black hole in my heart and those of his many
friends, former students and colleagues.”

District Fails, But Fire Service May Improve

The Bonny Doon Fire Team and many Dooners were disappointed by the
failure of the effort to improve fire and emergency services through
the creation of a Bonny Doon Fire District. On a 4 to 3 vote on Sept.
22, by LAFCO (Local Agency Formation Commission), denied the district
application, However, the Fire Team has filed an appeal, citing
procedural and legal errors.

Meanwhile, County Fire is proposing to bring an engine and a two-
person crew up from its Felton station to Bonny Doon. Details of the
move remain to be worked out among CalFire, the Fire Team volunteers
and the Board of Supervisors, which contracts with Cal Fire to serve as
the Santa Cruz County Fire Department in areas without their own
districts.

It seems that the enormous 3-year effort to create the Bonny Doon
district, while falling short of its goal (pending the decision on the
appeal), will still result in improved services here, although much
remains to be worked out, including what the coverage will be when the
CalFire crew is needed to fight wildfires in other parts of the state.

UCSC-City Cooperation Begins

A new era of collegiality has dawned as UCSC and City of Santa Cruz
officials began working together to minimize the impacts of the
university’s growth on the community. The settling of various lawsuits
among the City, UC and the community has created a framework for
cooperation in the areas of traffic, public transit and resource
management, and created an enforceable contract with stated benchmarks
for performance.

Nevertheless, the City Council also took the first step in mid-October
of putting the language of Measures I & J into law. If you recall,
these two ballot measures which were passed by about 80% of the City
electorate, were cancelled on a legal technicality – inadequate public
notice before the ballot. The measures required UCSC to fully mitigate
the impacts of its past growth before expanding further, and required
it to get the approval of LAFCO, the Local Agency Formation Commission,
before the City could extend water and sewer services to the North
Campus.

The City and UCSC are faced with the enormous and perhaps impossible
task of trying to cope with the impact of 4,500 additional students and
over 1,300 new staff on housing, traffic and water supply in the next
11 years. Besides that, the City must try to keep traffic flowing on
the Westside as several other big projects come on line, including the
expanded Safeway and New Leaf markets, UCSC’s Marine Sciences campus
and the Redtree work/live development, the latter two of which are on
Delaware Avenue.

RBDA Board Nominations

Four RBDA board member positions are up for election this January,
those of Ted Benhari, Jodi Frediani, Tom Hearn and Miriam Beames.

Following the bylaws, the board appointed board member Tom Hearn to the
3-person Nominating Committee, and Tom selected Jane Cavanaugh and Yana
Jacobs from the RBDA membership to serve on the committee. Per the
bylaws, the committee will present its nominations at the Nov. 12
General Meeting.

Additional nominations will be accepted from the floor at that time,
after which nominations will be closed. Nominees to the board must be
RBDA members in good standing as of Nov. 1, 2008. If you are interested
in running, call Tom at 423-2483.

Bonny Doon's voice in preserving our special quality of
life,
The Highlander, is mailed free to Bonny Doon residents prior to
the
RBDA General Meetings, which are usually held on second Wednesdays
of
January, March, May, July, September and November.
We encourage you to participate.

Send mail correspondence to the Highlander Editor at the
above
address,
or by email, below.